I think its a disappointment. No built in gun, not even a bubble canopy. Lockheed have done better, much better. Multi role equals disadvantaged at any one. Maybe the American machines are simply getting too smart, compromised, expensive and limited in numbers to be cost effective? Old classics like B52’s still perform well – does that say something about buying just enough tool for the job?

” Multi role equals disadvantaged at any one.”
That used to be true, but I don’t think it is any longer. The F16 showed the way and this takes it a quantum leap further.
Bubble canopy? Have you read about the capabilities of the thing? The pilot has full 360 degree vision via the helmet – far, far more than any other fighter.
It’s certainly not limited in numbers, unless you mean countries will choose to buy fewer of them because of the cost. Lockheed is geared up to produce thousands of them.
Old classics like the B52 will be dead meat in any confrontation with China or Russia, in almost any role you care to name.

The issue of guns-vs-missiles was true back in the Vietnam era where planes and pilots still flew into the fray and duked it out at ranges less than 1 mile.The modern engagement will be at 4-10 miles distance and in the case of the F-35 the enemy may never see it,just the inbound missiles.
Personally we should have went ahead with the F-22 also as it’s not exactly a slouch.

“Experts” have been saying that for the last 35 years. Yet those who actually fly the planes know that once you have fired all your missiles you still have to destroy the enemy. Without guns the plane is just a sitting duck.

A lot of much smarter people than you and me disagree with that, Findalis. I’ll put my money on their opinions.
There won’t be a “dogfight” in the sense you’re talking about, because if it came to that the battlespace would already be lost.
“Bet you after the first dogfight guns are put on.”
Lockheed, experienced pilots and the finest brains in the business must have somehow overlooked that….
Enemy pilots tooling around in scarf and goggles aren’t going to decide anything, because they’d be punching empty air. And doing it without electronic ground support.

“A lot of much smarter people than you and me disagree with that, Findalis. I’ll put my money on their opinions.”

Yeah but those smart peoples’ equivalents said exactly the same thing about the F4 back in the day, didn’t they? Dunno, maybe they were just getting ahead of themselves and the end of the gun has now arrived…I’m not particularly happy about the “Lightning II” designation myself, couldn’t they find a better name than pinching such a great one?

James, if you can get hold of it, read “Boyd, the fighter pilot who changed the art of war”.
Back in the day, procurement and the associated specs had a lot to do with Pentagon in-fighting. The real experts were ignored and marginalised so it’s not necessarily a case of the experts being wrong.
Interesting fact: Due to Boyd, the Marines changed their warfighting doctrine. And without Boyd’s influence, there would probably have been no F16. He really did change the art of war. A remarkable man.

The USAF version does have an internal cannon while the Navy and VTOL versions offer it as an external pod so it’s not without a gun.
Fire and forget technology has changed things,a target can now be acquired accurately miles out,locked on, weapons fired and as soon as the missile leaves the weapons bay the pilot can turn his attention to the next target.
The planes can also network together and track multiple targets simultaneously.

“..and in the case of the F-35 the enemy may never see it, just the inbound missiles.”
Which of course will deny the space to the enemy, especially an enemy with inferior electronics capabilities. Which is almost as effective as shooting them down.
But a lot of people have difficulty adjusting to the new aerial warfare realities.

True and most forget that the way we use aircraft has changed since even the latest Iraq war.
In the next conflict the enemy will launch fighters to intercept an inbound attack.The bulk of those fighter will be taken out early in the engagement from standoff distances,the remainder will turn tail and run returning to base to find it has been taken out by cruise missiles fired from rotary launchers inside the bomb bays of B-52’s.
As the remaining enemy jets spiral into the ground for lack of fuel and a place to land,the last thing the pilots will hear is the crackle over the radio as their command and control structure is reduced to rubble by a flight of autonomous Global Hawks.

Let’s not confuse this discussion by quoting the priests of global warming, eh?
Of course they look for countermeasures–that’s an ongoing war even in “peacetime”.
And intercepting signals is not the same thing as being able to decode them within the necessary timeframe.
For example, some fighters and bombers use “rolling codes”. This changes the codes and frequencies at very high speed – too fast for a ground station to lock on long enough to analyse. And the game has become much, much more complex in the last few years.

You’ve got to be really careful with countermeasures. Disinformation is the bread and butter of intelligence. For example, the Russians jiggered the telemetry during their missile tests to mislead. This wasn’t discovered for years and probably adversely affect our war fighting plans.

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